Strain in Copper/Ceria Heterostructure Promotes Electrosynthesis of Multicarbon Products
Haibin Wang, Hao Zhang, Yan Huang, Haiyu Wang, Adnan Ozden, Kaili Yao, Huamin Li, Qianying Guo, Yongchang Liu, Alberto Vomiero, Yuhang Wang, Zhao Qian, Jun Li, Ziyun Wang, Xuhui Sun, Hongyan Liang
Abstract
Elastic strains in metallic catalysts induce enhanced selectivity for carbon dioxide reduction (CO2R) toward valuable multicarbon (C2+) products. However, under working conditions, the structure of catalysts inevitably undergoes reconstruction, hardly retaining the initial strain. Herein, we present a metal/metal oxide synthetic strategy to introduce and maintain the tensile strain in a copper/ceria heterostructure, enabled by the presence of a thin interface layer of Cu2O/CeO2. The tensile strain in the copper domain and deficient electron environment around interfacial Cu sites resulted in strengthened adsorption of carbonaceous intermediates and promoted *CO dimerization. The strain effect in the copper/ceria heterostructure leads to an improved C2+ selectivity with a maximum Faradaic efficiency of 76.4% and a half-cell power conversion efficiency of 49.1%. The fundamental insights gained from this system can facilitate the rational design of heterostructure catalysts for CO2R.